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I travelled Euston to Manchester and back last week for first time in ages. Must say I was not at all impressed with Avanti or their Pendolinos. Both trains ran late, seats uncomfortable with a splendid view of the wall. The contrast when I got on a 745 from Liverpool St home was noticeable...

These units are 45 years old so maybe it's an ageing issue?

In my place of work it was called "manumatic"

Lowestoft to Ipswich (the East Suffolk line) was on the Beeching list but has survived, also Norwich to Sheringham survived Beeching.

Older passengers still use the posted timetables. If there is a rush to go full-digital like say the banks are trying to do, folk like my elderly Mother in law will be excluded. Is this what we want?

Loco - Valenta cl 43 dmu - take your pick from any of the original 1950s dmus after ten years use. Inside, some of them rattled so loudly you couldn’t hold a conversation. emu - class 301/302/303 had desperately noisy compressors

Utter bull****. Fairy-dust politics. Let's put all our eggs in a "technogy not invented yet" basket and wait for the magic fairy.

Your point is valid only if total suspension of services has become an acceptable event. I am of the traditional view that providing a reliable service is the reason train operators are there at all. Having no backup systems at all seems very naive to me.

Putting reliance on only one type of device to cover an essential service puts any system at serious risk of Common-Mode Failure. So having ALL your trains from one class might seem attractive to the accountants but it leaves an operator wide open to one fault causing no trains, and here it’s...

wrt to other views, which I respect, I recall seeing D8300 (class 20) brand-new, out-of-the-box at York in 1967. They have run their course, paid back their capital, worked their shift. Let them rest in peace. Although my username harks back to 45533 patriot class in 1959, my first definite...

Atmosphere certainly. 40 mph winds @ 5 degrees C

Good point. Coldest station I was ever at in uk

My brother and I were on a Manc Piccadilly - Euston. 2 young women had got on late with enormous suitcases, but when the guard saw their tickets he told them it didn't stop at Stoke, but they could get out at Stockport, go back to Manchester and they'd be able to get the next Stoke service...

They certainly did. On a trip to Southport with my mother in mid-60s the windows and everything else were rattling so badly nobody in the carriage could hold a conversation.

You're right they were comfortable for the passenger, travelled on them many times from M/cr Vic.

Going back in time, steam locomotives included a goodly number of turkeys. LNWR 0-8-4 tanks, which leaked water and regularly derailed; LYR 2-6-2 tanks much the same. LNWR Webb 4-6-0 compound Bill Baileys (so nicknamed cos the sheds never knew when they would "Come home") . Further back, my...

745s are much more comfortable, quieter and faster. If /when we're allowed out again I'll be happy to travel on them up to London again.

As a previous poster rightly pointed out, these units are 35 years old. Eventually it becomes throwing good money after bad, and time for withdrawal. Economics will take them off the rails sooner or later, and hopefully before a serious engineering failure caused by the corrosion.

Diss has at least 2tph GEML stopping each way throughout the day. It’s also up on an embankment, offers little shelter from the wind and rain, and is a long walk from the town centre. A truly miserable station.

Diss - it's up on an embankment, only rudimentary shelters provided and it's often very windy and cold